


with a touch of a hand

by banditchika



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Series
Genre: Found Family, Gen, genny voice: i have never done anything wrong in my life ever. sonya: i know this and i love you, vague SoV spoilers???, when clearly she's adopted genny n is happy n alive, why is intsys spreading lies w sonya's ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 21:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11090427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/banditchika/pseuds/banditchika
Summary: With Sonya's sisters turned to ash and Genny's parents lost to memory, they would have to be a new kind of family.





	with a touch of a hand

Genny's hands are shaky. Hardly something that Sonya would usually point out, but the sweet thing isn't usually holding a sharp pencil near Sonya's eye with those tremulous hands either.

"Careful now," she says, as gentle as she's ever learned to be. The pencil touches the corner of her eye, tracing a squiggle that feels like a butterfly alighting on her lashes. "Firmer. You want to be able to see the color from five paces, or as far as your little island."

"Um..." The tip of the pen works in wobbly arches across Sonya's eyelids. Genny's sleeve tickles her face and Sonya just barely keeps the twitch of her cheek from shaking Genny's hand even more. "Like this?" 

Sonya turns to the mirror - really a particularly large shard of glass that they'd leaned against a clear patch of wall - and takes a look. 

Huge, inky rings circle her eyes, one noticeably larger than the other. A smokey smear traces the curve of her cheek where Genny's sleeve had brushed against the makeup. It's certainly... something. At least there's no sign of tremulous lines in the void that's consumed much of the skin around her eyes - though that doesn't change the fact that Sonya now bears more resemblance to a raccoon than a woman.

Goodness, but she certainly looks like a _fright._ Against the pale of her skin, the inky makeup looks almost frightening.

"It's... oh, I've made a mess of it." Genny rolls the pencil between her anxious hands. "I'm sorry, Sonya - " 

"Don't apologize. I think it's quite impressive, really." Sonya tracks a finger down one ring, smearing it down her cheek. She rubs the smudge from her fingers. "I'll make sure to have you apply my makeup if I'm ever in the mood for warpaint." 

Genny's shoulders bunch up to her ears. _"Sooonya!"_

"Truly! I look very fearsome. This'll scare brigands away without my having to use a spell." She ruffles Genny's curls, hand skittering through her bangs like lightning through the air. Touching her is still something that Sonya has trouble with. For all that teaching Genny and traveling with her comes easily, the burden of - what? Motherhood? Sisterhood? - is something that Sonya is still leery of. She may have seared Jedah into ash in the wind, but the memory of her sisters still burns bright in her chest. The resentment and bitterness she has harbored since she was old enough to understand are as her own blood and bone now, as intimate now as the magic flowing through her veins. Sure, they could - and would, and have been - bitter _together_ \- but Genny deserved more than one lesson in makeup application and a world of spite. 

Once, Sonya had been the youngest of three. Could she be an older sister to Genny? 

Genny chews on her lip, and Sonya is glad now for the mask drawn over her eyes. Though savage, it hides her turmoil wonderfully. "If you say so. I still think how you do it is better. When you draw, they look like little wings. It's way more beautiful than... um. Looking like you haven't slept in a week." 

"We all have to start somewhere. My 'little wings' used to make me look like a rotting Terror. Ugh." Sonya shudders for effect and smiles at the fragile curve of of Genny's lips. "Ah, I hate to think of it. But don't be discouraged. You'll be as good as me before you know it." 

"T-That's hard to imagine." Genny sets the pencil aside, plucking gingerly at the rest of Sonya's makeup things. "Do you want to wipe it off, or...?"

"No, leave it." She can wash everything off at once later. Sonya considers the array of jars and tablets and cakes before her. With how much Genny has penciled around her eyes, eye shadow would be redundant, leaving only... "Try the rouge next."

"This?" Genny taps at a cake of red powder. 

"Yes. That's for applying onto the face. See that jar, there? - that's for the lips." Genny reaches for a fat brush, its fine bristles tinged with a dusting of red. "Right, that's perfect. Just pat that against the powder - good, good, not too much - and then have at!" 

"Er..." The brush twists in Genny's grip as she scans Sonya's face. The poor thing doesn't seem to know where to start.

"You know, makeup helps to enhance what's already there," Sonya says, conspiratorial. If nothing else, she's determined to be a good teacher. "Rouge gives a nice, healthy flush to the cheeks. Think you can figure out what to do from there?" 

"I, I think so." Being abandoned at a priory is hardly an ideal start to one's childhood, but at least Genny's never needed to learn how to conceal herself behind a mask: and it shows. Her tongue pokes out between her teeth with the intensity of her focus, the brush prodding feather light at Sonya's cheeks. She should be _brushing_ , and no doubt Sonya will end up with two uneven circles dabbed onto her cheeks when Genny pulls away. At least neither of them will be out and about today. Sonya winces to imagine parading around looking like a court jester.

"That's a good start," Sonya says when she checks the mirror. She could have downed a bottle of ale and still be less flushed than she looks now, but Genny's back straightens at even that scant praise. "Here, pass me that bit of cloth - I'll show you something." 

Sonya takes a corner of it between her fingers, then holds it out. Genny mimics her. "Right, see? This is for blending. When your hand shakes or you've misjudged how much rouge you've used, this is perfect for diffusing the color." Sonya turns her cheek to Genny, straining to see her reflection in the mirror. "Rub gently like this along the cheekbone like so - and there you have it. Now you try." 

"Huh..." Genny takes the cloth and brushes it against Sonya's cheek with fast-fluttering fingers. "How's this?" 

Better. Though the color isn't as smooth as on the other cheek, Sonya's gone from 'possibly inebriated' to 'maidenly flush,' which is by an far an improvement. Sonya says as much, and Genny lights up. 

"Should we paint your lips next?" Without being asked, Genny blots off the brush on a stained cloth. A quick learner; or maybe kids her age just have developed more common sense than their toddling counterparts. That's what kids - adolescents - do, right? Whatever. Genny's likely more wiser than most village-bred children anyways, though maybe this isn't something Sonya should be inferring just now, and from her having the sense to wipe off a brush before putting it away to boot. 

"Go for it. Give me a moment to respond if you need to ask questions though. I won't be able to speak while you're painting." 

"Mmhm." Genny carefully, carefully eases open the jar of paint. She finds a slim brush and dips it in. The tip tickles as it brushes against Sonya's lips, and she's struck by how _different_ it feels when the paint is being applied by a hand that isn't her own. 

The sensation isn't uncomfortable, but Sonya can't say she enjoys it either. She doesn't like things being out of her control, even something as small as having makeup applied onto her. Sonya has been wearing makeup ever since she escaped from the priory: over a decade now, but this is the first time that the brush feels alien against her skin. It makes the skin at the back of her neck prickle, and she thinks about calling it all off, about catching Genny's wrist and stopping her mid-brush.

But the hand that brushes color onto her is just barely half the size of her own, slim fingers bearing only the faintest of spell-scars where Sonya's have been touched with the remains of lightning's kiss and shine all over with burn. Genny can't hurt her - moreover, she wouldn't. A war veteran she might be, but with a healer's heart and a gentle soul. Genny's a soft girl - and Sonya means that in the best of ways. Hadn't that been why Sonya'd brought her along in the first place? Somehow, Sonya's bitter and salt-crusted heart had found it in itself to be horrified at the thought of sending the poor girl back to a priory all alone, void of even the friends she had left with. 

Genny smiles more with each swapped story and shared grievance, and Sonya has learned to smile with her. She cares for Genny - as a sister, a mentor, even a surrogate mother (though Sonya would still argue that she's far to young to be Genny's in flesh and blood). The two of them are like souls, and if fate had seen fit to be cruel to them both, then Sonya would damn well make it her business to keep the worst of the world from scalding Genny as it had her. 

The brush dips inside her lips. The foul taste ejects Sonya from her thoughts, her sputtering accompanied by a sheepish "O-O-Oops!" 

Genny draws back and Sonya runs a finger inside her mouth, sour at the inelegance of drooling all over her hand. She wipes her finger onto the cloth Genny had mopped the rouge off on. "Well! I enjoy bitter things, it's true, but I can't say I very much like the taste of paint."

"I'm sorry." Genny lowers her eyes. Her mouth works as if to apologize more. Sonya tilts her chin up with the hand that wasn't just digging around in her mouth, thank you. 

"Just the first apology is enough. We shouldn't ever have to apologize for more than the wrongs that we've committed with our own hands." Her voice is soft. Sonya can hardly recognize herself. Genny murmurs assent, and Sonya sneaks a glance at the mirror. 

Not too shabby. Genny seems far better with a brush than a pencil - though perhaps her shaky hands were because she feared poking out an eye? Sonya's glad Genny managed to refrain. She might have taken Genny under her wing, but she's hardly about to wear an eyepatch like Celica's crusty old mercenary or that horrid Nuibaba. She glances at herself in the mirror. There are spots where Genny's brush migrated from her lips and onto her face, but for the most part, the red restricts itself to her lips. 

Sonya still isn't a sight fit for polite company, but it's a start. "Not bad. Keep this up, and maybe I'll just ask you to apply it from now on, hm?"

Genny beams, then purses her lips. "You don't need to patronize me! But, um, thank you for saying so."

Sonya snorts. She's more amused by the rare flashes of cynicism that slips from her more than she ought to be, but it's what she knows. Sonya hardly wants to mold Genny in her image - no, that's the last thing she would want ever want. But if having a daughter, a student, a little sister is anything like this?

Sonya supposes that it isn't so bad.

**Author's Note:**

> sonya's ending?? i don't know her
> 
> anyways sonya is so cool and compassionate in her support w/ genny, n since intsys did her dirty like that i wanted to give them a chance to kind of fumble around with this friend-mentor-big sis thing they develop in their A-support. love found family dynamics and i had to let the world know!!
> 
> edit: i didnt expect 2 get this many comments on this omg... im glad u all enjoyed that sweet sweet found family dynamic ^^/


End file.
